


The Trail Blazing Job

by Ladymordecai



Category: Road to El Dorado (2000)
Genre: Other, implied polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-20
Updated: 2014-12-20
Packaged: 2018-03-02 09:57:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2808314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ladymordecai/pseuds/Ladymordecai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three con artists, two relationships, and one beginning.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Trail Blazing Job

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kihadu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kihadu/gifts).



> This doesn't entirely fit your prompt (or what I had planned!) but I got hijacked, which seemed appropriate given the main characters. I hope you like it!

"Let's go." Chel kissed him on the cheek and Tulio sighed. There was a remarkable woman. Smart, courageous, snappy, Chel was his perfect match in a woman. 

Still, it had been so. Much. Gold. Just gone. Knowing he'd made the right choice didn't mean he didn't regret losing all that _gold_ . . .

Miguel pushed himself up next to him and held out his hand. Tulio found himself looking at the most familiar face in the world--a little more lined, a little more jaded, but more dear than ever for having come so close to never seeing it again.

"Partner?" Miguel asked, holding out his hand, eyes fond.

Tulio looked up at his longtime companion and assessed for a moment whether one big gesture could make up for everything that fell apart. Given that they'd both been perhaps a little rash, blinded by a bigger score than a couple of mid-level cons could ever dream of, he figured it could. It was a really big gesture, after all.

"Partner," Tulio agreed, feeling Miguel's hand in his for the first time in too long. He thrilled a bit at reconnecting with his partner. Even if some of it was leftover thrill from the craziest boat ride of their lives.

"Hey guys. Come on! You don't want to stay here forever, do you?"

A problem immediately occurred to Tulio, and he could tell he and Miguel were back in sync when his partner brought it up first.

"But we don't have a map." Miguel's dismayed face actually brought Tulio joy at this point. Miguel was dismayed not to have a legendary map, they'd lost a literal boatful of gold, but Chel was laughing and Altivo pranced with eagerness.

"We don't have a plan," Tulio added, fully expecting Chel to have a solution.

Sure enough, she shrugged and smiled. "Ahh, that's what makes it interesting."

Christ, she was like all the best conniving parts of him and Miguel combined, with her own spark thrown in. Whatever happened next, they'd have a lot of fun and hopefully make a tidy profit.

When Chel shouted, "Let's follow that trail!" and Altivo reared and threw off him and Miguel, Tulio was beyond surprise. Rubbing his aching butt as Chel and the horse galloped away, he turned to Miguel.

Miguel's rueful shoulders and bright eyes said clear as day, _She's amazing, this is gonna be so much fun!_ Tulio raised his eyebrows right back to indicate, _I told you so, you should believe me more often_ , and Miguel tilts his head and, _You're the one who said she was trouble_. Tulio can only lever himself up and glance back to say, _You're right--sometimes trouble is fun_.

Once they catch up with Chel and Altivo (or more accurately, once Chel and Altivo deign to come back for them), they ride till it starts to get dark and then make camp.

While Tulio is picking apart his local-whatever-it-is, trying to find the least-burnt not-raw bits (three thieves: not good cooks. Being gods spoiled them), Miguel is eating without even checking and staring at Chel. Tulio likes staring at Chel as much as the next woman-inclined person, but Miguel (who is, arguably, the next woman-inclined person, though neither of them are quite that narrow) is not staring lustfully but curiously, as if trying to find an escape route or the best way to scale a wall.

"Where were you going?" Miguel finally asked. "You took just one thing, a very specific piece, and got all the way out which we know isn't as easy as it looks, and you only didn't make it because they sent about a dozen scary guys with spears to bring you back."

Chel leaned back against Altivo in that way of her that emphasized all the right places. After spending so much time in her company, Tulio was pretty sure it was reflex.

"Why should I tell you?" Chel batted her lashes and lowered her eyelids half closed. Tulio looked up from his patchwork dinner. Well, so maybe not entirely reflex. She hadn't exerted herself at Miguel back in the city, but he certainly couldn't blame her for exerting a little now. She'd gotten what she wanted, after all. She was out and she even had a crew to run with. Maybe she didn't get that nest egg like she'd planned, but none of their plans had quite worked out for any of them, so Tulio figured they were all on the same footing (and in the same jungle) now.

"You are a fantastically beautiful woman," Miguel began, eyebrows doing that arching, _you know this but love hearing it_ thing. Chel settled in even more against Altivo's side, turning both hands palms up, a sort of invitation to Miguel to try his best.

Tulio sat back to watch.

"Fantastically beautiful women rarely need to resort to base bribery, especially with the sort of sympathetic sob story I'm sure you can dream up." Miguel leaned forward, tale-spinning body language similar to his guitar playing. Tulio felt a pang of loss at his friend's music, but knew Miguel would find it again. "Noblemen--righteous rich men--from any culture would take you in, provide for you, give you a good life on a platter . . ." his eyes narrowed. "But that's not what you want. Adventure, you said."

"I did say," Chel admitted, leaning forward toward Miguel. Tulio felt himself leaning forward a little as well, caught up. Willingly following Miguel's lead described a lot of his life, even if he spent it curbing some of Miguel's wilder impulses, and Chel's magnetism attracted him right from the beginning. These were his partners, connecting for the first time, playing with each other. There was no way he wouldn't fall--jump-- _leap_ into their spell.

"I was headed any direction that would get me out of there, it's true," Chel admitted with a shrug, as if this were unimportant. Tulio remembered that feeling, though. The burning, constant, avaricious desire for _something better_ , and knew Miguel remembered it, too. Tellingly, Chel pushed a lock of long hair behind one ear. Miguel mirrored her, making a link between them, though his shorter blond hair slipped out again to frame his face. "As for the god head . . . stealing gold from temples might be acceptable where you come from--"

Miguel and Tulio exchanged a look of remembering all the times priests had chased them out of churches for abusing sanctuary laws.

"--but around here, nobody's going to buy temple idols. So when a poor girl gets lost trying to bring a priceless treasure back to a temple where it can be safe--"

"--she gets rewarded and praised, ooh, especially if you pick one of those gullible pious initiates beforehand--" Miguel leaned forward farther, around the fire and into Chel's personal space, and she matched him, their hair not-quite-mingling. Miguel let Chel not-answer the question in favor of trading grifter tips and tricks for manipulation. Chel didn't plan as well as they did--they'd had years of working together with both their strengths--but she was clearly their master at in the moment improvisation and both reading people and projecting exactly what she wanted to be seen.

As the night evolved, and the three of them tested the cushioning effect of jungle leaves, Tulio for once in his life couldn't stop smiling. Him, Miguel, and Chel, three very proficient con artists--oh-yeah. Blazing this trail would be fun and profitable. An adventure.


End file.
